designswarm thoughts

It’s the start of a new year and someone asked me to come in and talk about the internet of things. This has happened countless times but the beginning of the year and the sight of discarded Christmas trees pushed me to take some time to reflect on the last 8 years of work. (I consider it as important to make as it is to write about why I make.)

I won’t go into the details of the full presentation but it seemed that pre-2007 (launch year of Twitter and the iPhone) the market was full of strange and smart exciting products. Not platforms, not hacks, but proper things you could by on a shelf on the high street. Pleo, Aibo, Nabaztag, the Ambiant Orb & Umbrella and the promise of the Hug Shirt. Most of these products failed, were discontinued, or were never developed past the trademark stage. The hacker community took over and the commercial game became about platforms. Arduino spawned endless compatible shields, kits and competing products sold through the likes of Sparkfun or Make Magazine. The community created a design culture of one-offs.

In the last 2 years it’s been about building web platforms for the internet of things. Started by Pachube, the marketplace then filled with companies whose existing business models fit the new mould. We have to do better than that.

As CES is under way and initial reports of the latest dancing robots flood the internet, I think the UK design scene has a tremendous opportunity and can’t afford not to get involved. Most of the people who have pushed the field forward have been hackers, producing on-off products that need support to get to the shelves of the high street.

In the midst of quite a lot of angst around manufacturing in the UK this is an opportunity the UK can’t afford to miss. Bridging links between hackers and manufacturers is an opportunity that won’t suffer from misplaced nostalgia, and will create new business opportunities. In the same way the north of Italy supported most of the manufacturing boom of the 1960s, using the UK’s expertise in manufacturing should enable it to become quickly THE place to get your internet of things devices ready for mass production and onto the high street. That’s something the government should help with and maybe that’s what Tech City should be about…

If anything, 2012 is the time for crazy bold entrepreneurship and enthusism in this stale consumer product space. Austerity periods are often a wonderful time for creativity and we need that boost. The failure in the take-up of smart energy meters have proved that we have to go beyond pure utility to make the internet of things part of our daily lives, and really tap into people’s desires for whimsy and fun (see Homesense if you don’t believe me). People didn’t buy an iPhone because it could make better calls. This is the time to really do something different and make connections that didn’t exist before. Onwards and forward and Happy New Year everyone!

I had the great pleasure of attending the V&A’s Power of Making symposium last month and chaired a panel with Bre Pettris, Adrian Bowyer, and Marloes Ten Bhomer. The whole day was fascinating and I think I might ask the panel more questions and publish them here.

One thing that really gnawed at me during my holiday was the way in which people used the word “make” at the event. There was an agreed use of language in the art world that didn’t seem to mean the same in the hacker community. Also, somehow, everyone thought that an artist was the most noble of every kind of creator. This is interesting. If we have found a common language in the word “making”, noone seemed to agree on how noble we consider the output of the “making” itself. Someone with the 40 year skills in engraving a gun, was considered less interesting than a designer who produced rough sketches and had them made by others. There’s a perceived value in not getting your hands too dirty, as if ignorance was bliss, or technical knowledge in itself was an incomprehensible elite (a woman in the audience complained that as an artist, she’d need to learn CAD to make something). My panel was viewed with a mixture of sniggering and fear in such a place. Most of the establishment was ready to rule it off as being for “geeks”. I think what differentiates the two communities is a mixture of curiosity and humility. It takes humility to admit that you can learn new tools and that those tools might make you a different and better designers/ artist. That probably comes from the meritocratic environment of the internet and not the traditional hierarchy of academia. This will have to be addressed in the design and art schools of the future as it’s an important barrier to collaboration.

As I work my way through my notes on the event, I also wanted to start to unpick who was using the word “make” and what they were making. This is a first stab and not really about creating collaborative connections yet. I might also be missing some things, do let me know. In this, I think we can see where the “creative industries” overlap and therefore where skill sets overlap. This also proves perhaps that one should be quite careful with using any one term. Designer, artists, engineer…when you look close enough, can become one and the same.

Last summer I reviewed Open Design Now and Leonard Reviews have just published it. If you’re into the same things I’m into, you should read it :)

As part of RIG, I worked closely with Phil, Andy and Amanda (an absolute pleasure, you should hire them, seriously) to launch FRSTEE a few weeks ago. The most interesting thing about this project for me was the opportunity to work with rapid prototyping in a way that made economic sense. To build a micro-business in the heart of the Silicon Roundabout. That’s what Tech City is about no? I was told in 2000, while at my BA, that those technologies were the future of manufacturing. 11 years later, that’s still the message, but I’d like to think our little contribution gets us closer to that objective. Realistically though, rapid prototyping is still incredibly expensive when you want something that is beautiful, of variable size and made quickly. Qualities that DIY solutions don’t cope well with so far. I’m sure that’s only a matter of time mind you.

The design of businesses and the business of design
Building businesses is the kind of design work I find myself doing. It is a design activity in a strange way and my design background along with the experience of running Tinker has been invaluable. The most important skills I think I’ve developed are predicting future problems and handling money. 2 things I wish they would teach in design school to make young people a little more ready for industry. So here are some quick things I learnt in helping build FRSTEE.

Things you need to remember when building a micro-business

1. You need someone to do the boring work
There’s a ton of boring work in a business. In this one, it’s about collecting the orders once they’ve been rapid prototyped (round the corner on Curtain Road at Inition), checking them, tying a festive piece of string through them, looking at orders, putting the right one in bubble wrap, in a box, printing out the address and stamp (using online stamps by Royal Mail) on a label and finally walking over to the post office to send them. Because each piece is unique, that pretty much prevents us from using smart fulfilment solutions like Amazon. All of this incredibly tedious work is done by Amanda. She is a star.

2. You need to worry about the smallest numbers.
Something to remember is that all of this costs money. Amanda’s time, packaging, stamps, boxes, bubble wrap, tape. Stuff you have to buy and cost out for every package you send out to make sure you’re still making some money somewhere down the line. Tricky when you can’t drive the cost of rapid prototyping much lower than it is, again because of how unique each is. Tricky also because charging too much for a bespoke product starts to feel like luxury and in these economically challenging times, that’s not a good idea. A glass ceiling in a way.

3. Never drop the ball
Not unlike launching a web service, you have to constantly be in touch with people. In our case that means our suppliers and customers. I live in a constant flow of emails, ordering supplies and keeping on top of everything. We send out orders every week so far and that feels good, a rhythm is setting in even if it’s a seasonal product.

4. Always work with awesome people who understand technology
Phil implemented a design that was initiated by Ben. He also built the connection between Andy’s ability to script designs in 3D and Paypal. Andy made the rendering easy and connecting it to Inition a breeze. Magic as far as I’m concerned. When you’re working with people who just understand the technologies they are working with and are willing to learn new things, things just get done much faster. After all these years I value a “yes maybe” much more than I value a “no but”. It’s an attitude that gets you through a lot in a business even a small one.

So it’s been a year since I wrote my long rant about Tech City UK. Someone asked me the other day what I thought about things now so I thought I’d write about it again.

Silicon Roundabout / Tech City: it’s not about location
Since November 2010, things haven’t changed much in Old Street, except that the Silicon Roundabout thing went from a joke to becoming a marketing vehicule for Shoreditch. Companies moved in the area and started waving the flag around. I started to track activity around the expression on a Tumblr site. Journalists from the US came to visit, companies from the world of advertsing, PR and others are organising tours, walking around trying to understand what is happening behind the converted factories. Local companies had a football match, organise recruiting events and shared food recommendations. I use the past tense as activity has diminuished over the summer as London snoozed. I’m curious if it will pick up again, or we’re kindof collectively over it. If anything, I predict that Tech City will replace the tongue-in-cheek moniker, and Stratford will stay isolated. Right now, the idea of a technology & innovation hub makes sense in Shoreditch, not Stratford. Google’s choice of (sales) offices south of Old Street means they’ve understood that too even if becomes just another TechHub. I’m not sure where the Olympic legacy fits in anymore. It’s even dissapeared from public discourse as Cameron finds himself with other fish to fry.

Show me the money
Having a bunch of startups in a city means you have to build an investment ecology around them. What’s changed the most in the past year is how many of those startups started to turn to government for funding. VC & angel funding isn’t quite there yet but The Technology Strategy Board, a governmental funding body started putting out calls for more web & tech centric topics after years of catering to industrial manufacturing only. Their call on “internet of things” for example generated a lot of buzz, as did the Tech City call that fueled Makielab. It would be useful, instead of bullying corporations to open offices around here, for the government to get them to invest some money in start-ups funds, not unlike the Awesome foundation. I’m sure this sort of scheme could count as social corporate responsibility. Of course if most of these startups end up being acquired by US businesses, you could argue this isn’t doing our economy much good on the long term, but as we all know governments aren’t good at long term plans anyway.

So I’m not sure if I’m excited or not yet. And I guess that’s the problem.

A few months ago, I started exploring a simple idea around keyrings. This turned into material explorations using laser cutting and wood and finally perspex.

The perspex version I built looked a lot more abstract, a little 1920s jewellery, but later it occured to me that what I had designed, through a material exploration was really a digital map recognition system I’ve called Mapcodes.

The idea is simple: why can’t we use maps to link to maps? An abstract, blocky shape, is easy to recognise with the right software as AR projects have shown, but the marker (qr codes, fiducials, etc) often isn’t human-readable or bares little relationship to the content. Mapcodes would present a simplified map which, if you know the area, you could recognise, but more importantly, your mobile device could identify and point to the digital map for that area, the tfl route, whatever. The gap between the representation and the digital tools is bridged.

Interested in helping me develop a prototype? Get in touch darn it!:)

The Internet of Things is now strongly established as a trend, not necessarily a market yet. Most people in the field will agree it usually describes how ubiquitous technologies and infrastructures like Wifi, 3G (5G soon), Bluetooth might help us connect not only technology-centric products like phones, tablets and laptops but a plethora of physical devices that aren’t connected yet like chairs, doors, buildings.

If we have a good, if inconsistent idea (follow #iot on Twitter and you’ll see what I mean) about what the The Internet of Things is supposed to be about we rarely put a face to the people or companies that attempt to create the consumer-facing products that make this trend come to life, the mass market devices and solutions. Things that people want, and desire as much as the latest gadget.

For the KTN Creative Industries workshop last month I identified 5 archetypes of companies that currently produce consumer-facing iot devices or solutions Here are 3 of them.

1.Product companies who find telco partners to bootstrap the business
Another way of enabling the growth of iot products on the market is to form relationships with the companies providing the technological infrastructure. When Rafi Haladjian launched Nabaztag in France, it was offered as part of a France Telecom boardband package. This allowed it to get into the homes of future users very rapidly. Obviously, Rafi’s background as the founder of the first French ISP FranceNet (which he sold to BT) must have helped. GlowCaps, (David Rose’s lastest project) made deals with AT&T in the US to offer connectivity and call support services to their smart medication packaging products. Products like NetSmart, Current Cost’s web extension to their energy monitoring devices (which Tinker worked on initially) is a good example of a company that traditionally is driven by product design, but dipping its toes in the data game. With the knowledge they have about distribution and deals like an initial partnership with Google they have allowed their company to be perceived as a stable service provider.

2.Web companies with prototyping capabilities and enough turnover to deal with some manufacturing
Google’s latest moves in the hardware space are unique and interesting. First their business location NFC-enabled business packages to allow you to “check-in” easily. Then they announced the Android ADK. These are not necessarily consumer-facing products yet, although one can argue the community of hackers is large enough, but I’m curious if they’ll support the production of ideas and projects built with these platforms. Historically the people selling the platforms aren’t the ones involved in product funding or manufacturing.

3.Advertising agencies who develop products ideas as PR
Being able to make something physical has become a differentiator in a competitive marketplace like advertising. In 2007, companies like Moving Brands worked on physical projects that linked to digital interactions like the Weare scarf . In 2009, Weiden + Kennedy designed a limited edition range of data-driven jewellery that were being sold in Soho. More recently RIG (which I am now a partner in for full disclosure) made a unique series of Christmas decorations that were tailored to your use of online social networks. There are plenty of other experiments like a digital foosball table, and Bakertweet. However, most of these projects were made in small quantities in terms of manufacturing (less than 1K units). They are often experiments to allow those organisations to learn from the process of making, fabrication, retail etc.

These 3 archetypes don’t include one-off products for museums, exhibitions, r&d or academia because they often have a reason to be one-offs. These archetypes also prove there is a tremendous amount of space in the market for partnerships, experiments, diversified funding and business models. It’s a whole new world of entrepreneurship out there.

Just a little public note to announce that among the many various little and bigger projects I’m working on, I’m also helping Mozilla as Local Producer for their upcoming London-based Festival on November 4th-6th. It’s gonna be about media & freedom and in light of the recent public debate around the role of media in politics and society, there will be lots of good conversations to have. Ear-mark it people, you should come.

I’m starting to put together a little map (duh) of digital making resources in London I have used or know about. Mostly laser cutting services for now, but will add more. If you think of anything else, drop me a line!

View Making in London in a larger map

Random conversation with Russell this morning prompted a Google hunt for businesses or projects that use the word “innovation”. It turns out that we quite like to put innovation in boxes of various sizes and like to judge its merit on an architectural scale. As innovation is something that’s quite intangible (it’s either happening or not) I suppose its normal we should try to measure it on a scale we understand.

I am incredibly lucky, I’ve worked with fantastic people and had so much fun. I am also doubly lucky that Paola Antonelli, when she came to see me and Russell at Tinker last autumn, really liked the Homesense Kit and the Big Red Button because she’s decided to include them as part of the Talk to Me exhibition that opens tonight. If you’re interested in the “Internet of Things” go see it.

Homesense in general would never have been possible without the help of Edouard & Charles at EDF R&D who supported our efforts from the get go. The project would have been literally impossible without Georgina‘s strength and tenacity. The kit which is on display, was the work of so many people but I want to specially thank, Natasha and Richard both terrific designers who came down from Lancaster to try to package up technology tools into a fun toy-like kit. I’m incredibly proud of the work and results of the project. Please go and have a roam around.

The Big Red Button was the brain-child of Russell who came upstairs and said “what about it?”. We first had a bespoke version in mind, but in the end, it was Daniel who took up the baton and makes them on order. You should buy one. They’re fun.

So yes. If anyone goes to the opening, send me some pics!

An oldie but a goodie.

Just a back of the envelope exercise, but here are 3 realistic scenarios.

The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) for the Creative Industries ran a workshop where participants were invited to think about the barriers to SMEs to apply for TSB funding in their numerous calls. We also discussed and mapped out concerns around how to develop “internet of things” business and market opportunities in the UK. They invited me to come and speak and I decided to focus on looking at the different businesses that end up developing iot projects. I thought this might be useful in identifying their needs, motivations and hurdles.